There was a long, loaded moment when she looked slowly around the room. Gorham sat with breath held, watching the girl watching the room, and she had changed again. Grown older, he thought, though there was something not quite right about that. When her gaze swung back to him at last, he realized-her dreams had been her work, and waking had been the inspiration she needed.
"There's lots to do," she said. "Will you help?"
"Of course. I'm more than just a book."
The girl smiled, then scratched at her arms. The dried stuff of her birth flaked off and drifted to the floor. "I need to wash first," she said. "While I'm doing that, perhaps you can prepare some food?"
"Yes," Gorham said, feeling no qualms whatsoever about taking orders from a child.
While Rose bathed, Gorham rooted through the Baker's cold room to see what food was left. Whatever means she'd had of procuring fresh food must have gone with her, because the remains of older foodstuffs were all he could find. The dried meats and cheeses were still edible, and the sliced mepple fruits, though softening, were far from rotten. He prepared a few plates and left them on the table, and when Rose emerged in some of Nadielle's fresh clothes-the trouser legs and shirtsleeves rolled up to accommodate her smaller frame-they sat together to eat. The girl was distracted, staring intently at a plate of dried meat while her mind worked, and Gorham was careful not to interrupt. Finally, each of them nursing a glass of Echo City's finest wine, she started to talk.
"She cannot stop the Vex," she said. "She knows that."
"You can…?" Gorham began, remembering the effect upon Nadielle when Neph had faced the Vex way, way beneath them.
"No," she said, "but it's obvious in her action. She chopped me as her successor, so she knew the end was close. She knew there were important things for you to tell me, which you have. And the Bakers don't…"
"Not unless they know they're about to die."
"Bakers have rarely coexisted." She stared into her glass. "She'll give us as much time as she can, but there's no telling how much that will be. We have to act quickly. But there are many assumptions. This Rufus has to be found."
"He will be."
"And brought here to me."
"He will be."
"You sound certain, but you can't be. You can only assume."
"Malia and Peer won't stop looking until they find him."
"In a city of countless people." The little girl drained her glass with the action of a seasoned drinker, sighing and licking her lips.
"He stands out," Gorham said carefully. Is she already so pessimistic? Was she born this way?
"Well, assume they do bring him," Rose said. "I'll then have work to do. And though I have ideas about what that is, there will be much preparation." She was talking more quietly now, as if to herself, looking around the room, searching for someone else.
"And what about me?"
"You?" She stared at Gorham again, her eyes piercing and intelligent. Her mother used to look at him like that. A city of countless people, and that's far too small for you, he thought.
"Do you want me to…?" he said, waving vaguely at the books, the papers.
"I want you to help save the people of Echo City," she said softly. "I have ways and means for you to get your word out there. You still have networks? Watchers ready to spread information, should the need arise?"
"Yes, there are some. Though many have been silent for a long time."
The girl nodded. "Caution. That's good, in peaceful times. But now is no time for caution. Now is the time for chaos, Gorham. I want you to organize that chaos."
He shook his head. Am I supposed to understand all this?
"Everyone needs to go south to Skulk Canton. If all the assumptions come in just as we want-they bring Rufus here, he's amenable, my work progresses as fast as I hope, the results are successful-then we'll be on our way there too, as soon as we can. And we'll take with us the means for people to cross the desert."
"We will?" he asked, wide-eyed.
Rose smiled. And there again, in her eyes, Nadielle.
"Spread the word, Gorham. Come with me." She stood quickly, leaning against the table to steady herself, face paling.
"Are you-"
"I'm fine." She smirked at him. "I was just born, you know." She led him from the room, crossed the womb-vat chamber, and headed behind the three ruined vats. Nadielle had never let him go behind there, but he'd explored while waiting for Rose to be birthed. As well as the large curtained routes that led out into the Echo, he'd found three locked doors and one open. Behind the open door was a room with walls full of deep holes. No torch shone in there could reach the end, and he'd wondered what strange chopped things might have made them. Now perhaps he'd find out.
Rose unlocked each of the three locked doors by stroking her hand across a spread of moss on the door's surface. The moss changed color, the doors flexed and swung open, and when she shone her oil torch inside, she smiled.
"Very good," she said. "I remembered these were here, but I never knew how effective…" She trailed off, talking to herself again.
Everything she knows is like a memory, Gorham thought. I wonder what she knows about me? It was an uncomfortable thought-she was only a girl-but Nadielle had always claimed that her mind felt far older than her body. How confusing, how challenging to have experience and knowledge that did not match physical age. Indeed, in the world of the Bakers, what was physical age? A measure of time that they could contradict and tease. Their womb vats and what grew inside them defied time, and flesh artistry was only a small part of their talent.
"What are these places?" Gorham asked. The first room she had unlocked contained dozens of wooden boxes fixed to the walls, and shapes flittered at its shadowy extremes.
"These are our communications to the world," she said. "Bats in here." She pointed along at the other doors, naming each one. "Red-eared lizards, sleekrats, and…" She waved him over and they approached the final door together. It was open only a handbreadth, and the darkness inside seemed heavy and thick. There was no sound coming from within, but Gorham sensed a potential that was almost deafening.
"In here, more-unusual ways to send your message." She shoved the door open and shone her torch inside. The ceiling to the room was open, rising into a dense darkness that seemed to go up and up. Its walls were lined with what looked like flaking paper flicking in the breeze-and then Gorham saw that it was not paper at all, but wings. There were thousands of moths in the room, settled on the walls and apparently asleep. They seemed unconcerned at the light, and only a few took flight. The floor was scattered with dead moths, but only a small number. They clung, waiting, and he imagined the secret sound of thousands of fluttering wings.
"You should send the moths first. I'll tell you how they all work."
"And what will you be doing?"
"I have a vat to prepare," Rose said. "It's all up to time."
"Time and assumptions."
"Those too." Rose stared into the room for a while, lost and daydreamy again.
She's not even a day old and she's trying to save a world, Gorham thought. He reached out and took her hand, and she gave him a brief squeeze before heading back to her rooms. Her rooms. She's the Baker now. He followed, shivering when he thought of Nadielle, where she was at that moment, and what she might be facing.
Rose went to one of the many cabinets, opening and closing several doors, frowning as she looked for something. She paused, concentrating, then spun around and crossed to another cabinet. Behind the first door she opened was the bottle she sought. She brought it across to Gorham and unscrewed its lid. There was a new sense of urgency about her now. Even the act of sitting and eating together, so recently completed, seemed a world away.
"I'm going to give you-"
"You're chopping me?" he asked, stepping back. The bottle looked ancient in her young girl's hands, the glass uneven and distorted, coated in the dust of ages.
"No," she said sharply. "Aiding. Gorham, this won't hurt, it won't damage, and… even if it did, you can't think of yourself now. If I could chop you quickly enough, send you up with the message to spread yourself, I would. There are ways and means. But it would take far too long."
"But this?" he asked, nodding at the bottle.